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QUANTUM KEY DISTRIBUTION WITH REALISTIC HERALDED SINGLE PHOTON SOURCES

Miko Laj Lasota, Rafa L Demkowicz-dobrzański, Konrad Banaszek

Published Aug 17, 2016• 5 citations
OpenAlex

Abstract

We analyze theoretically the performance of four-state quantum key distribution protocols implemented with a realistic heralded single-photon source. The analysis assumes a noisy model for the detector heralding generation of individual photons via spontaneous parametric down-conversion, including dark counts and imperfect photon number resolution. We identify characteristics of the heralding detector that defines the attainable cryptographic key rate and the maximum secure distance. Approximate analytical formulas are applied to multiplexed detection and compared with results of numerical calculations.

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QUANTUM KEY DISTRIBUTION WITH REALISTIC HERALDED SINGLE-PHOTON SOURCES

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We analyze theoretically the performance of four-state quantum key distribution protocols implemented with a realistic heralded single-photon source. The analysis assumes a noisy model for the detector heralding generation of individual photons via spontaneous parametric down-conversion, including dark counts and imperfect photon number resolution. We identify characteristics of the heralding detector that defines the attainable cryptographic key rate and the maximum secure distance. Approximate analytical formulas are applied to multiplexed detection and compared with results of numerical calculations.

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In practical quantum key distribution systems, there inevitably exist errors in the quantum state preparation process due to imperfections in realistic equipment and devices. Those errors would lead to some security loopholes in the quantum key distribution systems. According to the work of Tamaki et al. ( Phys. Rev. A 90 052314 ), here in this work we propose a state preparation error tolerant quantum key distribution protocol through using heralded single-photon sources. In this protocol, we characterize the size of the error in the preparation state of Alice and bring it into the security analysis, thereby avoiding possible security loopholes and improving the security of the system. Moreover, we take the three-intensity decoy-state method for example to introduce the method of constructing the model and estimating the parameters, and carry out corresponding numerical simulations. We make a comparison between the loss tolerant protocol with weak coherent source (WCS) and our present protocol using heralded single-photon source (HSPS). Simulation results show that under the same state preparation error, the key generation rate of the protocol based on WCS is higher than that of protocol based on HSPS at short transmission distances (e.g. less than 150 km). The main reason is that the detection efficiency of the local detector used in the latter scheme is low. However, in the case of long transmission distances (e.g. greater than 200 km), the key generation rate of scheme with WCS drops deeply, while the decline of the key generation rate of the present scheme is much flatter. As a result, the former can no longer generate keys after 211 km, while the latter can transmit a maximum distance of 228 km. Moreover, we also make a comparison between the present scheme and the GLLP protocol with HSPS. The simulation results show that the GLLP protocol with HSPS is very sensitive to the state preparation error and its key generation rate will rapidly decrease with the increase of the state preparation error. On the contrary, our present protocol shows almost no performance degradation under practical state preparation errors. It thus verify the robustness against the state preparation errors of our present work. In addition, in principle, the method can also be combined with the measurement-device-independent quantum key distribution protocol and the twin-field quantum key distribution protocol to further increase the secure communication transmission distance that the present system can reach. Therefore, this work may provide an important reference value for the practical application of long-distance quantum secure communication in the near future.

Acta Physica Sinica•Jan 1, 2022•0 citations
We analyze theoretically the performance of four-state quantum key distribution protocols implemented with a realistic heralded single-photon source. The analysis assumes a noisy model for the detector heralding generation of individual photons via spontaneous parametric down-conversion, including dark counts and imperfect photon number resolution. We identify characteristics of the heralding detector that defines the attainable cryptographic key rate and the maximum secure distance. Approximate analytical formulas are applied to multiplexed detection and compared with results of numerical calculations.
We analyze theoretically the performance of four-state quantum key distribution protocols implemented with a realistic heralded single-photon source. The analysis assumes a noisy model for the detector heralding generation of individual photons via spontaneous parametric down-conversion, including dark counts and imperfect photon number resolution. We identify characteristics of the heralding detector that defines the attainable cryptographic key rate and the maximum secure distance. Approximate analytical formulas are applied to multiplexed detection and compared with results of numerical calculations.
We have experimentally demonstrated a decoy-state quantum key distribution scheme (QKD) with a heralded single-photon source based on parametric down-conversion. We used a one-way Bennett-Brassard 1984 protocol with a four states and one-detector phase-coding scheme, which is immune to recently proposed time-shift attacks, photon-number splitting attacks, and can also be proven to be secure against Trojan horse attacks and any other standard individual or coherent attacks. In principle, the setup can tolerate the highest losses or it can give the highest secure key generation rate under fixed losses compared with other practical schemes. This makes it a quite promising candidate for future quantum key distribution systems.
Quantum key distribution (QKD) protocols utilize single photons for key exchanging. Heralded single-photon sources (HSPSs) with spontaneous parametric down-conversion (SPDC) is a practical and effective way of producing single photons of high fidelity, bringing extra performance especially at long distances. A pulsed laser is usually used as the pump for HSPS QKD, but it has disadvantages in operational stability and practicality compared to a cw one. On the other hand, a precise model describing the performance of HSPS with a cw pump is still missing. It is inaccurate and unsafe to apply the key rate model of the pulse-pumped HSPS QKD directly to the cw one, and it also overlooks the timing jitter and dead time of the single-photon detectors. In this paper, we study the cw case in detail, including practical imperfections of the experimental instruments. Our model shows that a cw-pumped setup can reach a much longer transmission distance (31 % longer) than the fastest pulsed HSPS QKD system at present, together with other advantages such as higher operational stability and better spectral characteristics.
Recently a long distance and high key rate quantum key distribution (QKD) has become possible by the idea of the decoy state method. We show that a longer distance QKD is possible by utilizing a heralded single photon source (utilizing spontaneous parametric down-conversion) as a source instead of a weak coherent pulse (WCP) as proposed in the original decoy state method. Moreover, the key rate is improved by utilizing a presently available photon number resolving detector as a trigger detector of the heralded single photon source and it is shown to approach the key rate of the WCP.
We propose a new method of decoy state quantum key distribution with a heralded single-photon source. Alice uses the parametric down-conversion to generate entangled photon-pairs, one of the pair is used as heralding photon. According to the results of the trigger detector the heralded photons are divided into trigger and non-trigger sets.The states of the photons in the trigger set are used as the signal states and the ones in the non-trigger sets are used as the decoy states. Because of the efficiency of the trigger detector, the two sets both have photons. The yield and error rate of the single-photon are estimated through the yield and error rate of the two sets. This method does not need changing the intensity of the photon source, is easy to implement. Analysis results show that this method can reach the same security distance as with a perfect single photon source; the key generation rate is increased a lot compared with the method with a heralded photon source and is approximately two thirds the rate of the three intensities decoy state quantum key distribution with a heralded photon source.
In practical quantum key distribution systems, there inevitably exist errors in the quantum state preparation process due to imperfections in realistic equipment and devices. Those errors would lead to some security loopholes in the quantum key distribution systems. According to the work of Tamaki et al. ( Phys. Rev. A 90 052314 ), here in this work we propose a state preparation error tolerant quantum key distribution protocol through using heralded single-photon sources. In this protocol, we characterize the size of the error in the preparation state of Alice and bring it into the security analysis, thereby avoiding possible security loopholes and improving the security of the system. Moreover, we take the three-intensity decoy-state method for example to introduce the method of constructing the model and estimating the parameters, and carry out corresponding numerical simulations. We make a comparison between the loss tolerant protocol with weak coherent source (WCS) and our present protocol using heralded single-photon source (HSPS). Simulation results show that under the same state preparation error, the key generation rate of the protocol based on WCS is higher than that of protocol based on HSPS at short transmission distances (e.g. less than 150 km). The main reason is that the detection efficiency of the local detector used in the latter scheme is low. However, in the case of long transmission distances (e.g. greater than 200 km), the key generation rate of scheme with WCS drops deeply, while the decline of the key generation rate of the present scheme is much flatter. As a result, the former can no longer generate keys after 211 km, while the latter can transmit a maximum distance of 228 km. Moreover, we also make a comparison between the present scheme and the GLLP protocol with HSPS. The simulation results show that the GLLP protocol with HSPS is very sensitive to the state preparation error and its key generation rate will rapidly decrease with the increase of the state preparation error. On the contrary, our present protocol shows almost no performance degradation under practical state preparation errors. It thus verify the robustness against the state preparation errors of our present work. In addition, in principle, the method can also be combined with the measurement-device-independent quantum key distribution protocol and the twin-field quantum key distribution protocol to further increase the secure communication transmission distance that the present system can reach. Therefore, this work may provide an important reference value for the practical application of long-distance quantum secure communication in the near future.